


Nanterre.

by spacestationtrustfund



Series: Mai 68 AU [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, dubious claims made about 1960s France that I based off 2018 France, many historical references and a fuckton of research, soyons cruels!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 16:35:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14140059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/pseuds/spacestationtrustfund
Summary: Combeferre rolls onto his side, thoughtful at first, then says, “What the hell, let’s start a revolution.”-The beginning of the long-awaited Mai 68 fic.(Okay, long-awaited by me, at least.)





	Nanterre.

**Author's Note:**

> I have tried to keep any and all references self-explanatory, but probably I did not succeed. Just let me know if something is completely incomprehensible.

PROLOGUE.

Lundi, Janvier 1, 1968: Nanterre.

 

There’s frost on the neatly clipped grass when the Minister of Youth escorts the group of new students across the broad courtyard and through the doors of Nanterre. Enjolras shoves his hands deeper into the pockets of his coat and glances over his shoulder; the sight of Combeferre walking behind him, Courfeyrac hurrying slightly to keep up, is a reassurance in of itself.

The world in 1968: exhausted, worn thin, stretched almost to the point of breaking. Tired of war, tired of the endless rush of progress. There are men who say that within a decade they can walk among the stars. There are computers that now work far more rapidly than the human brains that created them. The world is racing into the future too quickly for its inhabitants to hold on.

The rapidity of expansion has bled over into education. Thus: Nanterre.

Nanterre is built on a solid foundation of facts and statistics. The university has been open for four years now, the branching extension of the Sorbonne. There are twelve thousand students, fifteen hundred of which live in residence. The university boasts its dormitories and their capacity to host students attending other universities. Nanterre is the newest addition to the neat set of the best options for Parisian higher education.

This is the reality of its structure: Nanterre, urbanised, Americanised. A shiny new model of educational prestige, located on the outskirts of Paris amidst some of the poorest districts and slums in the country. A glittering jewel in a muddy hole.

Quick expansion has left cracks in its foundation. The discontent is seeping through.

Its precursor, the Sorbonne, tall and sweeping and founded in 1253, looms colossal in the background. All that happens at Nanterre will be compared to Sorbonne. It is Sorbonne which sets the standards; it is Nanterre which follows.

Factually, statistically, and properly, the administration and students of Nanterre only discuss Nanterre. Nanterre: new, splendid, full, proud.

Overcrowded. Straining at the edges, stretched thin.

The universities in 1968: packed to the brim with students desperate for a ticket to a higher class. In the decade and a half after the war, a university education was enough to change the colour of anyone’s collar. Now, workers and children of workers are rarely accepted into the folds of the educated class.

Born a worker; die a worker.

Mutters and grumbling have arisen, as always; the students are known to be volatile. The administration has decided that education makes them so. But nothing has been done about it.

Yet, Enjolras thinks. _Yet_.

He is twenty years old and the world is glowing so brightly it hurts to look at.

Change. Change is what lies in wait in the future; change is what the war generation fears, what the youth of the late sixties embrace. Changes to education, to government, to everything.

The dormitories set aside for the boys are simple. Plain. Nanterre is too new to adopt the high columns and vaulted ceilings of the Sorbonne. The students will share rooms in sets of two. Each hallway contains twelve double rooms, one bathroom for each dozen.

The Minister of Youth stops just inside the hall. He mops at his forehead with a stained handkerchief as he glances over the crowd of new students. His hairline is receding; he looks exhausted. His name is François Missoffe. He is nearly fifty years old. A chasm of age separates him from the students.

“Welcome to Nanterre,” says Missoffe. It is likely that he still remembers with clarity the war during which most of the students were children. It is likely that he still remembers the occupation of France. His voice is bland when he says, “I hope you all learn well, use your educations intelligently, and grow up to be a contribution to society and to France.”

Contribution: the basest expectation. Learn well, and give back. An endless cycle.

Enjolras smothers a yawn into the sleeve of his jacket. He wants to find his room and his bed and sleep off the train ride of five hours, the lingering exhaustion caused by the cold. Their suitcases have already been delivered to the correct rooms. His breath melts the thin layer of ice that’s gathered on the woollen fibres of his sleeve.

He and Combeferre share room 27. Enjolras has the map memorised.

Missoffe clears his throat, gathering the students’ attention one last time. His fingers move like restless spiders.

“Now, there _are_ some rules, boys,” he says, wagging a finger at them, as if to appear somehow comradely. “You’re not allowed in the ladies’ rooms—no exceptions! You can invite your sweetheart to your own room if it’s before curfew—that’s eight o’clock. But the doors stay open, and you’ve both got to be over twenty-one. Anything besides that, well—no!”

Courfeyrac, at Enjolras’s shoulder, turns a small laugh into a surprisingly believable cough.

When Enjolras looks quickly over at him, Courfeyrac has titled his head down slightly, so that his messy dark curls nearly obscure his eyes. His mouth curves.

“Secondly,” says Missoffe, “I know you boys are young and excited, but you’re also young and experienced. You’re here to learn, to be taught—remember that. Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t discuss your political opinions or the like—you _can_ , of course, in your dorms or during lunch hours, but in class you listen to the professors. You’re here to learn! If you interrupt, you don’t learn anything. All right. If you have any questions, I’ll be in the administrative offices, at the—”

He breaks off abruptly; someone has shouted something unintelligible from the back of the crowd. Something about _jeunesse_. Youth.

The topic is as volatile as the students. Missoffe himself has written a book discussing the youth of France. As the Minister of Youth, this is unsurprising. The surprise lies in the resulting reception: Missoffe is unrelatable, the critics say. Unreliable, distanced. Antiquated.

Obsolete.

Perhaps he still remembers his own youth. Perhaps he observes exceptionally well.

Perhaps he attempts to empathise with a generation he does not understand.

The voice comes again: “What if we want to start a student group for discussing our political opinions? Is that allowed, Monsieur? I don’t want to have to ask your permission to have opinions!”

“You’ll have to talk to Grappin, Monsieur le Doyen,” says Missoffe tensely. The Dean holds more administrative power in his fist than Monsieur le Ministre does. “I don’t know the details. Nanterre isn’t focused on that sort of thing.”

“It’s a university,” says Courfeyrac, just loud enough for the people gathered about them to hear, “surely it _ought_ to be focused on that?”

Missoffe’s face purples slightly, but he gives no indication that he has heard. “If there are no further questions,” he says through tightened lips, “I’ll leave you to get acquainted with your dormitories.”

Courfeyrac starts laughing as Missoffe stalks away. His laughter is open and sincere, the truest part of him. His breath forms a cloud in the cold air, even indoors. “Christ—his _face_. I should have known it would be like that.”

Combeferre sighs and unlocks the door to their room.

“That’s Missoffe, then,” continues Courfeyrac, marvelling, still delighted, still laughing. “What a character! I have half a mind to bring my own political opinions into every class, after that little episode.”

“We can talk to him later about organising some sort of student group,” Enjolras says, lying down on the bed he’s decided is his, stretching his legs out as far as he can. Combeferre ungraciously shoves his ankles until Enjolras groans and pulls his knees in far enough for Combeferre to sit down on the end of the bed. “Assuming we want to expand to include other students, since we have the opportunity.”

“I don’t mind just being with my best friends,” says Courfeyrac, hopping up onto the desk that rests beside the door. He looks through his lashes at the two of them, then turns his head slightly to call at someone passing by their door—“Hey, you! You were the one who yelled earlier, yeah?”

The newcomer pauses in the doorway, looking in. “That’s me,” he confirms, shaking the hand offered by Courfeyrac. “Bahorel, second-year. Nominally I’m studying law, but the professors don’t give a shit about attendance as long as you don’t cause trouble in class, so I just cause trouble outside of class instead. How ’bout you three?”

“I’m Courfeyrac, the one with glasses is Combeferre, and the blond one is Enjolras,” says Courfeyrac, smirking. Wariness emanates from him.

Enjolras gets up to shake hands. Bahorel is tall, dark, his collar unbuttoned and tie notably absent, but his grip is firm and friendly. He walks over to Combeferre to shake his hand as well, then says, blunt, “I hear you’re planning to start a student group for discussing scandalous political opinions, is that so?”

“We haven’t really talked to anybody about it yet, to get the permission,” Combeferre admits. “The three of us knew each other before Nanterre, and we met when we could for that purpose, but the reception here might be different.”

The portrait of a friendship: held together with letters and telegrams and the occasional expensive phone call, weekend visits between Nîmes and Toulouse and le Puy-en-Velay. Trips down even further south, to Nice, to the beach, the sea. Enjolras bites his lip. An image flashes into his mind, unbidden: Courfeyrac, ocean-drenched curls plastered to the side of his face, laughing with an open mouth, seconds after dumping a handful of cold wet sand down the back of Combeferre’s dress shirt.

The flash of displacement is sharp. Painful. His breath catches. Loss is a visceral ache that hollows his chest.

Paris is crowded and bustling, full of people and buildings and business, broad and ancient and labyrinthine. Paris is a different universe from the south, in size and population and language. The accents are crisp and harsh.

But here they’re together. Enjolras reminds himself forcefully of this fact.

Bahorel grins, wide and expressive. His teeth flash white. “Well, brother, I know nearly everyone in these parts. Been thinking of starting my own situationist group for some time. So if you decide to go through with it, drop me a dial. The students all get to use the telephone, as long as the calls are made within the country. _Pwrrrrrr_.” He imitates the spinning rotary, raising his eyebrows appraisingly. “You three all in this room?”

“No,” says Courfeyrac, sliding off the desk, “I’m staying in my roommate’s apartment—he goes to Sciences Po, he’s gonna be a lawyer too.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ll never be a lawyer,” says Bahorel cheerfully. “But if you can, take a class with Manuel Castells for sociology, he’s a riot in of himself. Grew up in Spain, punched a few fascists in his day, that sort of thing. You’ll like him.”

The _or else_ hangs in the air, fanged and grinning.

“I should go, actually,” says Courfeyrac, apologetic. “I told Marius I would be back—”

Bahorel raises his eyebrows. “I’ll walk you, if you want? It can’t be that far, and I’m used to walking about the city.”

“No objections here; I want to hear more about that situationist group you’ve been planning to start.” Courfeyrac takes Bahorel’s proffered arm, grinning at him, and the two vanish around the corner, chattering eagerly.

Combeferre tilts his head slightly to look at Enjolras. His expression is familiar. Comforting. It speaks of home.

Enjolras sighs and closes his eyes.

He is twenty years old and change is buried in every one of his bones.

He was nine years old when Sputnik I flew into space, nine years old for the Missile Gap. He was thirteen for the Bay of Pigs, for the establishment of the Berlin Wall. He was fifteen when John F. Kennedy was shot.

The world in 1968: more births than deaths on record, although the mortality rate of war endeavours to alter the statistic. Young people are the generation of rock and roll, the generation of yé-yé, the generation of sex and drugs and casual disregard for the old order. Tension is a palpable thing, in 1968, between generations and nationalities and families worn down to the bone by the bright shininess of the world.

Colour televisions, radio broadcasts, whirring computers; machines taking the place of people. The rapid pace of the future, always moving forwards, always speeding faster and faster. Never looking back.

 

 

-

 

 

 

PREMIERE PARTIE: NANTERRE.

Lundi, Janvier 8, 1968

 

“Facilities! Facilities! Facilities!”

“ _Better_ facilities,” Courfeyrac yells, standing up on his toes and waving his paper sign furiously in the air.

The small group of assembled students all look alike: neat, dark jackets and well-pressed trousers. Ties fastened properly. Hair brushed back. They do not look like the harbingers of a revolution.

Enjolras wraps his scarf more tightly about his nose and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Education, maybe, instead of a god damn _swimming pool_. We don’t _need_ another pool, we need a better education that’s more accessible to anyone who wants it. The poor, the workers, everyone. The university is overcrowded, but instead of providing a solution, they provide us with—this.”

Courfeyrac nods, serious. Drops back down onto his heels. “You could say we would rather be _swimming_ in education than in a pool. _Nager_.”

“That’s terrible,” Enjolras groans, but he ducks his head to hide a smile, and bumps Courfeyrac with his shoulder.

January is bitterly cold. Nanterre has been built into the edge of the city, integral, and Paris in its turn is chilled to the bone. The heating within the university splutters; fails. Students’ words make clouds of breath in the freezing air.

The students have demanded better facilities. Hence: the swimming pool in January.

It is supposed to be a solution.

“Ah ouais, j’suis terrible, moi, j’adore la terreur,” says Courfeyrac, grinning. Even inside the amphitheatre where the Missoffe’s inaugural speech is to be made, his cheeks are flushed and his dark hair is a mess of wild curls. “What’s terrible is that we’re freezing our asses off in _January_ on a Monday, of all days, because the administration is god-awful. Also that whole issue with parietals, and I don’t mean the bone.”

Three, four students protesting the inauguration of the superfluous pool, holding hastily crafted signs, booing when Missoffe falters. There are only a few of them, but Missoffe still looks increasingly uncomfortable with each moment that passes. He stands on the broad stage, sweating under the fluorescent lights, pinned in place.

Four years since Nanterre was founded: the university is already overcrowded. The administration refuses to listen when the students complain; the students refuse to shut up.

It’s been a week. Enjolras feels nascent, burning.

Nanterre is hardly different from any other suburban university campus—it’s rife with overcrowding, superannuated regulations, poor funding, and antiquated facilities. What sets apart Nanterre is that something is going to be done about it.

Enjolras has tested the political atmosphere of the students at Nanterre and found them mostly disillusioned, resigned. The administration manages Nanterre the same listless way it manages the Sorbonne, Beaux-Arts, Sciences Po, the Centrale, CNSAD, all the universities in the city. Nothing, the students have decided, is going to change.

And yet here they are.

Enjolras is determined to prove them wrong.

He is twenty years old and he feels incandescent.

“Speaking of surgery. Couldn’t convince Combeferre to show up, then?” Courfeyrac stands on his toes again, trying to see the forefront of the crowd. He has a sign that he’s scrawled in marker on the back of his homework—

LES ENRAGÉS PAS LES ENTERRÉS!!!!! ON NE VEUT PAS LA PISCINE; ON NE VEUT QUE LA LIBERTÉ.

“No, he would’ve had to run all the way across campus to make it in time, and he has enough to do already. Not all of us have free schedules,” Enjolras says. He’s shivering; he rubs his hands up and down his arms, draws his shoulders in tighter.

The heat isn’t working in the auditorium.

There have been nights when the students have had to huddle together to conserve warmth, dragging on extra coats and piling on extra blankets. Fingers and faces are burning red with the cold. Even indoors, the air is frigid.

A wicked smile slowly lights up Courfeyrac’s face. “Il faut qu’il _coure_ ,” he says slowly, “de son _cours_.”

“That,” says Enjolras through chattering teeth, “was even worse, somehow.”

Courfeyrac just laughs, delighted. “If the personal is political, would it count as discussing politics if I died from frostbite and you had to arrange my funeral? Or would I be interred far from Nanterre?”

“Write invitations on the walls,” Enjolras says dryly. “Shout it from the rooftops. _Here lies liberty; don’t unearth the corpse_.”

“You think so highly of me, to make me a figurehead.”

Politics: a forbidden subject on the premises of Nanterre. The students are not allowed to mention political topics, to meet to protest, to request that their classes discuss Vietnam or China or Germany or Czechoslovakia or America.

It becomes a list of wrongs.

Vietnam: the war that hangs like a heavy cloud over France. China: the massacre of students. Germany: the suppression of free speech. Czechoslovakia: the persecution of innocents. America: The Civil Rights Movement.

(There’s not much left to talk about, Courfeyrac had said sadly. The weather, yeah?)

Now, Courfeyrac pulls the marker out of his pocket again and uncaps it. He holds his tongue between his teeth as he writes on the wall of the auditorium—

_ici, la liberté s’arrête_

Here, liberty stops.

Courfeyrac slips the marker back into his pocket and grins toothily.

Missoffe paces the amphitheatre stage, looking harried, and taps the microphone an extra time before he finally starts speaking. His speech is hasty, pre-prepared, rehearsed. His belt is too tight and his head is balding. The fluorescent lights lend an uncomfortable sheen to his ruddy skin.

The government, Missoffe says, is looking after the students. The new swimming pool, Missoffe says, is proof of this fact.

“Are you going to say anything?” asks Courfeyrac, his lips barely moving. Enjolras shakes his head.

“We shouldn’t have to—”

He’s cut off by a shout from the crowd. One of the students, tired of listening. Enjolras ducks his head, presses his fingers to Courfeyrac’s wrist. Exhales.

 

-

 

Students in 1968: bitter, disillusioned, tired of being denied what they can all agree that they deserve. In the four years since the founding of the university of Nanterre, the students have led the course in the direction of the Sorbonne. Students write incendiary messages on the brick walls, smoke cigarettes on the _quais_ next to the Seine, share bicycles or mopeds into the Ile to visit shops, cafés, boutiques. Record stores are a popular centre of attention. Cafés host crowds of young people daily. Girls walk along the _rives_ with their arms linked and their skirts short.

Culture is a palpable thing, and it is different from the culture of the thirties and forties and fifties.

Courfeyrac spends more time in the Nanterre dormitories than he does at the apartment, by now. He recounts the events of the afternoon in a rather embellished manner while Enjolras works on homework and Combeferre builds a card tower.

“It wasn’t as exciting as Courfeyrac makes it sound. There weren’t a lot of people there, and it was really just Cohn-Bendit who interrupted,” Enjolras admits.

Courfeyrac looks utterly betrayed.

“It was exciting for _me_ ,” he complains, “it’s the beginning of a revolution! We’re going to make history! The administration has our names down on a black list of unruly students!—Bahorel told me about it. Anyway, Ferre understands what I mean.”

“Don’t bring me into this,” says Combeferre, alarmed. “The list is still a rumour. Is there going to be a follow-up of any sort, later? It’s highly unlikely that the administration will allow something so simple as a dozen or so students with handmade signs to stop them, if they have the idea in their heads already.”

The request to form a student organisation for the purpose of discussing politics has been denied. Bahorel, who runs with Daniel Cohn-Bendit’s crowd of anarchists and situationists, has led the pushback against the prohibition.

“Well, Missoffe actually left,” says Courfeyrac, gleeful, “so I don’t think we’ll need much more than _that_.”

“He left because of Cohn-Bendit and his friends, when they got the bright idea to start demanding access to the girls’ dormitories in the name of sexual liberation, and the focus shifted from facilities to dormitory regulations,” says Enjolras, letting his head fall onto Combeferre’s comforting shoulder.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing! They’re allowed in _our_ rooms, why can’t we go in theirs? Don’t tell me you honestly believe that it would ‘disrupt their femininity’ or something, you sound like Marius—”

“I don’t care about whether or not we’re allowed into the girls’ dormitories,” Enjolras says honestly. “I care about the fact that it’s only been four years since Nanterre’s founding and already de Gaulle wants to add it to the list of accelerated universities. The government and administration both want cheap and quick instead of anything meaningful.”

What he means to say is: the university is bloated with students who paid more than enough for a proper education. Workers and the children of workers dig in their pockets to find the bare minimum expense to pay for a university education, and instead receive a pathetic excuse. Funding is cut from the facilities, the dormitories, the student groups. The students who do come from a working background are treated like experiments, skirting about the fringes of the student life, constantly reminded that they are little more than charity cases whose fates rest in the hands of Missoffe, Grappin, de Gaulle.

It's more than just a careless decision regarding accelerated universities.

“Education is important. We all agree on that,” Combeferre says. He understands what Enjolras doesn’t say.

Courfeyrac rolls his eyes. “I know. I know! So print some posters of Enjolras’s pretty face and sign some petitions—as long as the government is involved in education, we won’t get anywhere.”

“So what are you advocating, anarchy?” demands Combeferre, but there’s no real heat behind the words. Debates are familiar ground. They could be eight years old again, playing together in the park.

“Well, if that’s what it takes to get government reform, yes. Remove the problem, which is the government. After that, we create a solution. Emulate Marx’s theory. I know that you’ve read his _Manifesto_.”

“Communism, then?”

“Ideally,” says Courfeyrac with a snort; they all know he’s not as cynical as he might presently sound. “I know you’re a communist, so don’t pull that shit. Education needs to be an inherent human right. Obliterate the idea that money and property equal intellectual superiority, and you have your utopia.”

“A classless utopia,” Combeferre adds. “Hegel would despise us, but that’s fair, since I rather despise him. How do you propose to achieve that when you can’t even unite the students on one university campus for one afternoon with a singular focus?”

“It wasn’t a singular focus, though,” Courfeyrac protests, waving one hand vaguely. “We got distracted, remember?”

Enjolras closes his eyes, content; he enjoys listening to their debates as much as he enjoys participating, if not more.

“Distracted by the potential of being allowed in the girls’ rooms? Or by Cohn-Bendit?”

“Low blow, Ferre.”

Enjolras opens his eyes sleepily. “We were divided; that’s why it didn’t go as well as it could have. We need to stay together. Division breeds incoordination.”

“Solidarity,” says Combeferre quietly, and Courfeyrac echoes him, chewing on his lower lip relentlessly. The skin is cracked from the cold, and a smear of blood follows his tongue when he drags it across his mouth.

 

 

-

 

 

 

Mardi, Janvier 16, 1968

 

Courfeyrac leans his head back against the wall and lets his knees lower him to the floor. He closes his eyes, feels the cool stone against the skin on the back of his neck, then opens them again. Someone has written on the notice board across the hall: _Charlemagne was a despot; humanity seeks to overthrow despots_.

A mangled Robespierre quote; a call for regicide.

Politics, the smug voice of his professor says in his head, are forbidden in the classroom.

He closes his eyes again.

Professors in 1968: weighed down with the lingering burden of the war. Untrusting of any disturbance of the newly re-established order. Unwilling to speak openly against de Gaulle’s governance, unwilling to allow the students to speak their minds. Some of them are elderly and outdated, like Missoffe. Some are barely older than the students they teach.

Twenty minutes, until classes are over, until the others find him sitting in the hallway. Time doesn’t seem to pass in a linear fashion—one moment he’s staring at the flyers pinned to the wall, the next he’s being shaken awake.

“Courfeyrac,” Combeferre is saying, rubbing his shoulder vigorously, a shivering blur in the corner of his vision. “Hey. Are you all right?”

 _I do not recognise a humanity which massacres the people and pardons despots_.

The words swim, distorted, across the backs of his eyelids.

“I’m all right,” Courfeyrac says. He thinks about standing up, a perilous risk. Before he can attempt anything, Combeferre drops down next to him, keeping a gentle but firm hand on his shoulder. “I got kicked out of class.”

Combeferre doesn’t ask what happened. He says, “Are you certain you’re all right?”

Courfeyrac nods. “It just—got out of hand,” he says. “We were discussing current events. Except we can’t talk about politics, so we were discussing nothing. ‘Vietnam is in Vietnam, and we are in France,’” he quotes, bringing his hands up to claw at empty air. “They don’t want to discuss it. I asked why they were afraid of students having opinions.”

“Ah,” says Combeferre, a quiet understanding. They have five minutes before their next classes start.

“He told me to shut up. I said it wasn’t fair, that I was allowed to have political opinions, that we had gone through too much to stay as sheep. That I didn’t want to be dumb and happy just because I was young. That the universities were overcrowded, and we didn’t even learn anything besides a chronic inability to talk to girls and the same empty-headed meaningless facts about mouldering kings on rotting thrones that amounted to nothing but oppressive dictatorships.”

Let us not be distracted by unimportant details, the professors say, plastic smiles stuck on their faces. Let us discuss the important factoids. Charlemagne, Napoleon, Louis something-something-something. Kings and power and all the wealth in the world.

Who provides the wealth? Unimportant details. Do the workers receive their fair share of the wealth? Unimportant details. Why don’t we learn about the poor as well as the rich?

Courfeyrac lets his head hang forwards until his forehead brushes his knees. He shuts his eyes, tight, and counts his breaths.

He focuses on the solid weight of Combeferre’s hand. Combeferre keeps rubbing his shoulder, impossibly gentle. Courfeyrac opens his eyes again and stares at the fingers creasing his shirt: dark, thin, fingernails pink-white, knuckles lined.

Details _._ The very thing the university combats.

Unimportant details: Combeferre’s other hand, bracing himself against the wall, fingernails chewed short. Where someone has scribbled on the wall in ink: _Art Is Dead—Don’t Consume Its Corpse_. The torn corner of the flyer advertising ciné-club every Saturday evening that’s pinned on the opposite wall.

The five minutes are up.

Neither of them moves.

 

-

 

“A demonstration has turned violent in Blainville-sur-Orne,” Combeferre says, turning a page in the newspaper, Courfeyrac’s feet resting idly across his lap. “At the Saviem. About four hundred workers. The riot police actually intervened, immediately, and shut it down. There’s supposed to be another demonstration today, to protest the censorship. Workers and students alike.”

The impossibility of forbidding politics from entering a university campus: politics are an integrated part of everyday life in France, in Paris, in Nanterre. Friends and family are either participating in or protesting against the war on Vietnam. Friends and family are German, Chinese, Polish, Czech, Russian, Korean, American. Friends and family are black, Vietnamese, Chinese; friends and family are transgender, queer, _different_. Friends and family are workers, students.

Friends and family are affected.

The entire world is affected.

Three days after the first classes began, Bahorel had turned up again with a batch of posters from “a friend who works in a print shop, he’s great, he knows a lot of people, you should meet him—anyway, he said to give you these, they’re for your political opinions club—you’ve got to do _something_. They might expel Dany, you’ve got to _help_.”

The posters: a raised fist against a solid white background. The arm joined with a building that was either a university or a factory or both. Written along the bottom, in precise block lettering: _la lutte continue_.

The fight continues.

“I don’t suppose we can go to the Saviem,” says Enjolras absently, without looking up from the essay he’s working on for sociology homework. If politics are forbidden in classroom speech, he’ll incorporate them into the written word.

Bahorel’s advice had proven viable: Castells is a remarkable teacher. He’s only a few years older than the students themselves, but he speaks with the experience of having lived through a war. A revolution. It’s intoxicating, sometimes, to listen to him speak.

Enjolras wants to hear him talk about politics.

He knows it’s not allowed, but he still _wants_.

He writes.

 _Les étudiants ne sont pas ces trublions irresponsables que la grande presse s’efforce de vous présenter_.

“Not unless you have some method of getting there, other than a bicycle,” Combeferre agrees. They’re eating lunch between classes, the only time they have during the day where they’re all briefly together. He tears his bread into strips, into tiny pieces. Eats them one by one.

Courfeyrac is the only one of them with a bicycle; sometimes he lets Combeferre sit behind him and Enjolras cling desperately to the handlebars, and pedals joyously across the courtyards of Nanterre, whooping gloriously even when Enjolras’s hair flies in his face.

“I’m saving up for a motorcycle,” he likes to say. He likes to say this the most when Enjolras is listening.

 _Les étudiants s’insurgent contre un système universitaire fondé sur une sélection qui interdit aux enfants des travailleurs l’accès à l’éducation_.

“I don’t,” Enjolras admits; it’s not like he’s particularly keen to allow Courfeyrac to cycle them all the way to the northwest of France.

He hesitates, the pencil hovering absently over the paper, then scribbles out _education_ and substitutes _university_. The two should be synonymous: access to an education is access to a university.

“Isn’t Saviem working with MAN, though?” says Courfeyrac. “We don’t know any Germans besides Ferre, he could—” He cuts himself off, then hastily adds, “I didn’t mean it like that, sorry.”

“I don’t speak for Germany, not any more than you speak for Spain,” Combeferre says, patient, and Courfeyrac winces. “And you’ve forgotten Cohn-Bendit. He’s also German, and Jewish.”

“He’s not black, though,” says Courfeyrac.

Casual reminders of displacement: Paris is a tight corral. You either belong in Paris or you are an outsider. The world is divided into _Paris_ and _not-Paris_ ; anyone who falls into the latter category is inherently ostracised. The city itself shuns foreigners.

They are all French citizens.

It makes no difference to Paris.

Enjolras can understand being tied to a nationality and language you’re actively encouraged to discourage.

Combeferre leans over to look at Enjolras’s paper and writes neatly across the top:

 _Les étudiants luttent contre la fonction capitaliste de l'Université au répond à l'exploitation capitaliste des travailleurs européens et ils luttent pour une formation permettant l'amélioration permanente de la qualification des travailleurs_.

“Thank you,” says Enjolras, and hopes it’s enough.

It has to be enough.

 

-

 

The workers of the Saviem and the students of Blainville-sur-Orne join forces as promised, marching shoulder to shoulder in the streets. The ORTF discusses the strike and subsequent demonstration on the radio.

Facts are released: nearly two hundred of the demonstrators have been wounded. Arrests have been made, complaints filed, rights contested. The government denies its involvement; the workers grumble; the students scramble to hold everything together.

Enjolras bends his head over the paper, seething. His fingers itch, for what he doesn’t know—a brick, a pen? He drags the tip of the pencil across the paper; it leaves a long, dark line. Stark grit against the white.

 _La violence des manifestations étudiantes est la riposte des étudiants contre la violence qui leur est faite dans une société où la bourgeoisie ne maintient son “ordre” international qu’en l'utilisant quotidiennement au Viêt-Nam, en Grèce, aux U.S.A. même contre les noirs_ —

 _Isolé, le mouvement étudiant peut être réduit par la répression gouvernementale_.

The riposte: the students, united.

He thinks about Daniel Cohn-Bendit and his group of anarchists. He thinks about Bahorel and his promised situationist coalition. He thinks about the working-class students and their hollow eyes. He thinks about Combeferre, the way he shrinks into himself when he’s not bracketed by Courfeyrac and Enjolras, the way he avoids eye contact with other students, with professors.

The world throws off sparks.

“I want to do something,” says Enjolras, and drops his finished paper on the table.

They usually go over their homework together, when it’s finished. Courfeyrac is reading a book from the tiny bookshelf in the corner. Combeferre is lying on Enjolras’s bed, his own unmade and paper-covered, trying to calculate something to do with gravity and aerodynamics by using a paper aeroplane constructed from his most recent sociology homework.

Courfeyrac looks up and nods, lips twitching in amusement. “I would suggest joining the Tour de France to make a real subversive statement, but something tells me you’d be opposed to that.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes at the remark.

“Any particular ideas?” Courfeyrac tears his gaze away from Combeferre’s eighth failed attempt.

“I don’t know,” says Enjolras, frustrated. He wants to do everything at once. “I want to make it obvious that we’re not going to sit back and let our lives be wasted and stolen. I—I want to make a point. I don’t _know_.”

Combeferre drops his arms; the paper aeroplane falls in a lazy line towards the floor and settles, soft.

He rolls onto his side, thoughtful, pensive at first, then says, “What the hell, let’s start a revolution.”

 

 

-

 

 

  
Mercredi, Fevrier 14, 1968

 

The Sorbonne is a cache of political fervour being stirred up into something simmering just below the surface of the brick and stone façade of the university. Nanterre seemed enormous when it was all Enjolras knew; the Sorbonne is colossal. The Sorbonne is a temple, a treasure-filled archive.

Bahorel knows people from nearly every university in Paris, and some besides, Courfeyrac explains. Through Bahorel, they meet a varied crowd of similarly-minded students: Prouvaire, a poet and musician who attends Beaux-Arts; Joly and Bossuet, from the Sorbonne, studying medicine and law, respectively; others.

It’s Prouvaire who introduces them to the café Musain.

The café is tucked away between two larger buildings in the Quartier Latin, seemingly innocuous with its rust-red awning and faded brick façade, but the interior is bursting with life. The owner, Mme Hucheloup, is willing enough to allow a student group to meet regularly, and the staff are all former workers.

Prouvaire invites them to nights where he plays guitar while Gibelotte and Matelote, the serving-girls, harmonise in the background. Bahorel brings him flowers in celebration. The occupants of the café loudly discuss the Cinémathèque Français, the incidents following the firing of Henri Langlois and the instalment of Pierre Barbin in his stead.

L’Affaire Langlois: André Malraux, _ministre français de la culture_. The deprivation of significant financial resources and of basic administrative direction of the cinémathèque, previously made available to Langlois. An unfair accusation against Langlois, that he is neglecting administration, accounting, management.

There’s a radio and tables that can be pushed together.

Enjolras collects the information and files it away, distracted by the possibilities. At Nanterre he had only considered minor protests and demonstrations against unfair restrictions on the students; after the Sorbonne there’s a fire burning just under his skin.

They’re going to do _something_.

When Bahorel offers them a chance to speak to the students gathered at the Sorbonne, Enjolras says yes.

The Sorbonne is a cavernous labyrinth. Situated in the crowded heart of Paris, it lacks the expanded campus of Nanterre, but the buildings are broader and older. Ancient.

Bahorel joins them at the entrance to the main wing with Prouvaire, who shakes everyone’s hand and offers them all a smile. “Hi,” he says, and leads them into the main hall, the student building.

“We have a room where we meet, usually,” Prouvaire explains, gesturing towards the hall as they climb up the steps. The Sorbonne has opened its arms to students from other universities; Prouvaire is evidently one of them.

“ _Show_ -off, you Beaux-Arts students like to think you’re so much grander than the rest of us,” mutters Courfeyrac, and Prouvaire laughs.

There’s perhaps a couple dozen other students gathered, which is a relief; Enjolras doesn’t want to be battered by a hundred unfamiliar faces expecting him to say something marvellous. He wants to listen, to observe.

He wants to gauge the political atmosphere of the Sorbonne and the _sorbonnards_ before he moves.

Half the students are from the Sorbonne. A few are from Beaux-Arts, mostly Prouvaire’s crowd of poets and musicians. Bahorel waves when they enter the room. “Comrades, we’ve got Nanterre with us today.”

A smattering of cheers, applause; Courfeyrac waves as well.

Combeferre looks over at Enjolras briefly, then steps forwards. “Hello, I’m Combeferre, from Nanterre. This is Courfeyrac, and this is Enjolras. We’re here today because Nanterre won’t let us talk about politics, and we want to talk about politics, so there’s been a slight disagreement there.”

A few students laugh. Joly, Prouvaire.

“ _Sorbonnards_ ,” says Combeferre, spreading his hands, more confident now. “The problems we face today aren’t problems restricted to a single group. Nanterre is overcrowded, crammed full of antiquated regulations and stifling restrictions. Money is poured into buying better equipment for sports teams, accelerating the pace of an education, expanding the universities, but the foundation is rotting. There’s a plan to annex the Sorbonne; and yet, dormitories are too small, heating is faulty, classrooms lack windows. The administration wants cheap, quick, and painless. Well, we’re the ones feeling the pain. We need to work together.”

He steps back, and nods to Enjolras. Most of them came to see Enjolras speak, he knows that much from the way the students’ eyes follow him when he moves. Murmurs and rumours have spread about the student with the fiery tongue and blond hair.

Bahorel is probably to blame.

Enjolras hasn’t planned any sort of speech. He works best when he’s allowed to speak freely, when the words flow easily, instead of preassigned statements that clog his throat when he tries to realise them. He closes his eyes briefly, and feels the right words sitting on his tongue, comforting and familiar.

Sorbonne’s walls don’t feel full of eyes and ears.

He opens his eyes, and knows what he wants to say.

“De Gaulle needs to be replaced,” Enjolras announces firmly, suddenly perfectly certain of this fact. “This is more than just a few students complaining about not being allowed to discuss politics in the classroom. Gaullism and capitalism have become intertwined, and we are left peering through the interstices between the bricks. We have to find something to replace the system that doesn’t work. We could construct a better government together. In the future, then, no one will suffer from such slights and injuries as the workers and students and poor have been suffering—in the future such measures will not be warranted. In the future, we won’t have to fight for the rights that each human being deserves. In the future, we won’t have to kill one another to obtain our inherent rights to food and housing and safety and education, and won’t have to be killed on the obverse. It’s love, not death, that will take hold of our future.”

He rests his hands against his thighs; breathes. In, out.

“We have to join together to combat the issues that the administration continues to foist upon us. Nanterre hasn’t had proper heating in months; Sorbonne suffers from windowless classrooms. Sorbonne doesn’t teach political opinions; Nanterre doesn’t allow political opinions. The administration still calls this _education_ , even when it’s not. They aren’t doing anything to fix the problems, so it falls to us to take up the banner.

“Education,” says Enjolras. “We came here for an education, not a lesson in obedience. We came here to _learn_.”

The Dean for the Sorbonne, Roche, arrives just as Enjolras finishes discussing the necessity of a plan for educational reforms.

Roche: scared of change, scared of the students. Enjolras goes outside, a few of the others trailing behind him, and calmly states the students’ decision to unionise.

And that seems to be the end of it. The students from Nanterre are sent home, escorted by officials. For their own protection, the administration claims. Protection from what, Enjolras doesn’t ask.

The students are later called into the offices at their respective universities for _disciplinary reasons_.

Missoffe threatens Enjolras with expulsion, speaking as though the permanent record Enjolras cares about was the one given to him by the school, not the one that chronicles the fight. The administration speaks as though following the rules is more important than doing the right thing.

Nanterre was one issue; Sorbonne is another. Enjolras simply holds his head high as Missoffe lectures him, keeping his mouth tightly shut, burning inside.

The world continues around them. The winter Olympics in Grenoble are broadcast for the first time in colour.

 

 

-

 

 

 

Jeudi, Fevrier 22, 1968

 

The Gaullist government, like any capitalist regime, is concerned with profit.

Education, modernised: de Gaulle wants to achieve this through rapid expansion of the universities. He does not mention that he wants to line his own pockets while he does so. The universities are overcrowded. Dormitories, libraries, lecture halls are overflowing.

De Gaulle was a hero twenty years ago. Today he is a rich old man prioritising personal gain over the needs of the people.

The money comes from the ruling class. The rich students attend universities.

The rest of them—

“We need a name,” Courfeyrac announces, dropping into the seat next to Combeferre and across from Enjolras, “and it has to be a good one, because we need to look good.”

The café Musain has become the central meeting spot. The radio plays the news at all hours, unless the students request music. When de Gaulle or Pompidou or Javert appears on the television, either Matelote or Gibelotte will flick the screen with a towel and hiss something about propaganda. Prouvaire brings in flowers every other afternoon and gives them to Mme Hucheloup when they eat lunch at the café.

Homework is the most popular way to pass the time, but some students play cards, talk about music, films, and of course the forbidden politics. The cafés hold the politics that the universities will not.

“Any suggestions?” says Enjolras, without looking up from his work. He’s drafting a leaflet addressed to the students, trying to figure out how to convince them to unionise properly. Nanterre to Sorbonne. Hands joined.

The universities need to work as one. The UNEF is the putative solution, but what they need is a de facto unity to push them together. The students require a cause to rally behind. Something concrete.

He thinks: Henri Langlois. In the wake of the Langlois affair, over four hundred signatures have been gathered from angry students. Many of those who add their names to the cause are directors, actors, celebrities. Chaplin, Kubrick, Welles, Buñuel, Truffaut, Léaud, Jade, Resnais, Godard, Marais, Delon, Polanski, Rivette, the like. Something like Langlois is needed—a call to arms. A cry for action.

Something to rally behind.

“Every organisation in France has a three-letter abbreviation,” says Courfeyrac, “so something like that.” He counts off examples on his fingers. “CGT, JCF, PCF, CDR, FFF, CRS, FER, PSU, JCR, you see?”

“ABC,” says Combeferre.

“Bland,” says Courfeyrac, pretending to yawn. “We’re students, we need to do better! Be creative!”

“I can’t be creative right now,” Combeferre groans, rubbing his eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about how much homework I should be doing.”

“Then do it,” says Courfeyrac. Combeferre groans again and puts his head down on the table with a thunk.

The shadow of Nanterre looms over them.

“Isn’t your roommate not a student?” asks Enjolras, abandoning his work with regret.

“No, Marius is a student. Sciences Po, remember?”

“Ambitious,” says Enjolras, deadpan. He’s only met Courfeyrac’s elusive roommate once, and wasn’t fond of him; Enjolras had mentioned politics, and Marius had turned red and mumbled something about how his family was firmly Gaullist. “Do you think we should go to Sciences Po, to talk to those students?”

“Yeah I do, but hey, we need a name, besides _ABC_. What about—”

“I like ABC,” Enjolras says, “considering you vetoed my idea.”

“It has to have _meaning_! Meaning beyond a profound affection for Stendhal.”

“I liked some parts of _Le Rouge et le Noir_ ,” Enjolras protests, “except for—”

“Yes, I know, I know—that,” says Courfeyrac, “was my point. We should also go to Beaux-Arts, if you’re actually keeping track of each university. You probably are.”

“‘A-B-C’ reminds everyone that we’re fighting for educational reforms.”

“Ferre, that’s—a good point.”

Combeferre looks smug. “So, ABC?”

“Fine,” says Courfeyrac grudgingly. “But it doesn’t _stand_ for anything—”

“Right,” says Combeferre. “But we do.”

And so the ABC it is.

Enjolras pushes the paper towards Combeferre, who takes it with an exaggerated sigh even though he’s not trying to hide his smile. “We need someone who can print these—Bahorel said he knew people who worked in a printshop, right? And then we need some way to distribute them.”

“Coco has a bicycle,” says Combeferre absently, skimming the sheet.

“Hey! Other people do too, or have you forgot already that we now have the Sorbonne working with us? I know at _least_ three other people who have bicycles.”

“Who?” asks Enjolras, suspicious.

Courfeyrac counts off on his fingers. “Well, Lesgle—Bossuet, he’s just called. But I think it actually belongs to Joly. Also Prouvaire has one, and Grantaire—you haven’t met him yet, I knew him from ciné-club, actually. Maybe he just has a moped. I don’t remember. Also I think Marius has a friend who’s good at getting things to people? I don’t know, he wouldn’t tell me anything about her.”

“Fine,” Enjolras concedes. “As long as they get distributed somehow.”

“You could always be the one to do it, you know.” Courfeyrac’s smirk is wicked.

Enjolras huffs a laugh. “I’m not getting on that thing.”

“Famous last words,” Courfeyrac says happily. “It’s a shame, though—it would do so much for our publicity.”

 

 

-

 

 

 

Lundi, Mars 4, 1968

 

Feuilly wakes up half an hour before the demonstration. A crumpled poster is sticking to his cheek, his hair is probably a mess, and his eyes feel glued shut. His mouth tastes like he swallowed a cocktail of printer ink and petrol.

“Damn,” he says softly, and forces his eyes fully open.

Falling asleep in the printshop is a mistake he keeps telling himself he’ll stop making. He peels the poster away from his face and rubs half-heartedly at his cheekbone, trying to get the ink off his skin.

The problem with scheduling anything after a weekend is that the likelihood that he’ll sleep through it increases.

Still, it’s not another day in the factories, so he can bear it. The atelier can barely stand on its own; if the students are planning to help the workers as well, wages could be raised, and subsequently prices.

A student-worker union could be a good idea. Feuilly allows himself a moment of imagining it before he starts moving again. He shoves lunch into a bag, grabs a stack of flyers off the table piled high with papers and tucks it under his arm, and pulls on his work boots as quickly as he can.

The Place de la République is altogether too far away, Feuilly decides, as he sprints down the rue du Faubourg du Temple, shoving bread in his mouth and trying not to trip over loose stones. He should move the shop to the square. He should open a new shop, despite how the current one is barely staggering along. He should get a bicycle or moped, or buy less food so that he can save up some money for the RATP—

The square is packed with people.

Bahorel and Prouvaire are standing off to the side; Bahorel has a sign that says, in bold and blunt block letters: _FUCK THE WAR_. Prouvaire is smoking, holding a bundle of posters tucked under his arm.

Feuilly stops next to them to catch his breath. “Hey,” he says, looking about at the people filling the square. “Good turnout?”

“Comparatively,” Bahorel says. He shifts his sign and grins at Feuilly. “The Vietcong are a popular subject.”

“Everything’s comparative,” says Prouvaire, exhaling a breath of smoke. “Who knows why the young people don’t turn up in their thousands to protest the _Printemps de Prague_ , or the violence in Germany, or the suppression of the civil rights movement in America? People are suffering everywhere.”

“Or the situation in Poland,” Feuilly says, speaking quickly, stumbling over his own words. “Or China, or—or—the students aren’t allowed to say what they want—the government won’t admit that anyone has been killed, but—the students are being found dead—the government is refusing to acknowledge that there’s anything happening at all, you can’t work with that, what could you do—they’re actively trying to suppress the student strikes, and they won’t even admit that the strikes exist—and they, they’re calling it ‘anti-Zionist’ now, in Poland, they don’t even _try_ to hide it while they deny everything—they hate us—”

He doesn’t know why he feels so out of sorts today; everything seems muddled. He breaks off, stuttering, when Bahorel jumps into the air and waves frantically at someone somewhere past them.

“Hey,” Bahorel yells. “Hey, Enjolras.”

“What,” says an amused voice from behind Feuilly, and he turns, heart thumping wildly against his ribcage.

The person who must be Enjolras is standing there, head tilted slightly to one side, hands in the pockets of his long coat. He’s holding a sign loosely in one hand, almost forgotten, his grip gone slack.

He’s beautiful, Feuilly notices, almost numb. Blond and tall and graceful in his movements. He looks out of place and yet somehow entirely at ease, and Feuilly has to force himself not to apologise automatically for somehow bothering him.

This isn’t a factory; this newcomer isn’t his boss.

But the subject of the rally is Vietnam, not Poland or China or any other country, and a tight fist of irrational fear grips Feuilly’s throat—what if someone decides to throw him out, tells him he isn’t wanted? He swallows.

It’s easy to protest publicly, when you have money and connections and an easy way out of trouble. It’s more difficult, when you don’t have anything.

“You were talking about Poland?” says Enjolras, barely moving his lips.

“I’m Jewish,” says Feuilly shortly, suddenly losing his patience with trying to rationalise his reasons for caring about the world, then thinks maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned it. Enjolras just nods. His eyes are wide and blue, like the sky above them.

“One of my best friends, Combeferre, is Jewish. He’s here, too.” He tucks his sign— _tuer est mourir_ in blood-red ink on a white background—under his arm and holds out a hand to shake. Feuilly takes it hesitantly. “You know about the situations in Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia?”

Feuilly chokes on a laugh born more of nervousness than amusement. His grip is too firm, he thinks wildly, or too limp. He’s making a terrible first impression. “Students have been oppressed and attacked forever, and that’s not to mention the Jewish people. I’m a Jewish student, I think it should go without saying that I give a damn what happens in the world politically.”

That earns him an approving nod. “I’m Enjolras, by the way—I know some people you might want to meet; I think you’d like them. They’re good people,” he says, flushing slightly as he releases Feuilly’s hand, and Feuilly is surprised by a sudden rush of fondness that he can’t explain. “We—we’re students, but we talk about politics too.”

“Despite the universities doing their damn best to stop us,” says Prouvaire, smiling viciously as he stubs out his cigarette against the stone wall of the building nearest to them.

“I’m called Feuilly,” says Feuilly quietly—it’s a name that was given to him at the first orphanage, when he’d been caught folding leaves of paper into trees and cats and miniature folding fans, when he’d admitted that he never knew his parentage or birth name—and finally manages to smile.

Bahorel shoulders his way back into the conversation. “ _Feuille_ here was at the demonstration on the twenty-fifth, in the rue Courcelles.”

“Oh,” says Enjolras, surprised. “By the Cinémathèque Française? Langlois?”

Feuilly nods. “Some—some people I know were there, too. I mean, apart from Bahorel, who doesn’t count.”

“ _Hey_ ,” says Bahorel.

Langlois, still: on February 25, in the Assemblée Nationale, François Mitterrand described the eviction of Langlois as _choquante_.

Shocking.

“You should come to some of our meetings,” says Enjolras, almost shy. He glances over at Bahorel, who’s now waving his sign and chanting something to the general group of gathered people.

The crowd is moving towards the Avenue de la République. It’s obvious that Enjolras wants to follow, but he stays, waiting.

Feuilly smiles at him again. “Okay,” he says. “I will.”

 

 

-

 

 

 

Dimanche, Mars 17, 1968

 

A demonstration in London against the Vietnam War ends in hundreds of arrests and injuries, with nearly a hundred demonstrators hospitalised.

Combeferre relays the news in the morning, while Enjolras is pulling on his socks. “First the murdering of innocents in Vietnam, then the inexcusable police violence against peaceful protestors. Not a single cop is injured, much less enough to be _hospitalised_. This transcends borders.”

“Another meeting?” suggests Enjolras, trying to tie his shoes one-handed while he shoves breakfast into his mouth. “We can organise a demonstration here, in Paris. Students standing in solidarity. We’re all human. Like you said, it transcends borders.”

“Yeah,” Combeferre agrees. He adjusts the collar of his shirt, smooths his slacks, makes sure his socks match. Pulls a loose thread from his cuff.

In the end they use the Musain, and send out an open invitation to _les étudiants qui veulent participer,_ which means that several from the Sorbonne turn up as well. Bossuet, Joly, Grantaire, together, on the fabled moped. Prouvaire, with a crowd from Beaux-Arts. A handful from various other universities.

Courfeyrac has brought along Marius from Sciences Po—Marius, who mostly stays quiet in his chair while the others speak. Combeferre discusses the war, and the line drawn from _battle_ to _massacre_. When defence becomes slaughter.

“War is currently an unfortunately necessary evil,” Enjolras murmurs. “Ideally it wouldn’t exist, but in reality it’s necessary to fight for what you believe. But there is a point where it stops being able to be rationalised away and becomes inexcusable. This war has long since surpassed that point.”

“The war has punched through the point with its fists,” Courfeyrac agrees, grinning despite everything. He never can resist a pun.

“Well, if you want an anthropomorphic—”

“Hey, aren’t you the anarchist from Nanterre?” blurts out one of the students.

“Me? I’m from Nanterre, and I’m somewhat of an anarchist, yes,” Courfeyrac says, lifting his eyebrows. “Why?”

“No, not you—him.” The student gestures to Enjolras. “Your name was in the paper the other day.”

Enjolras looks up, eyebrows furrowed. “I’m—not precisely an anarchist, I—”

“Leave him alone,” says Courfeyrac dismissively. “We’re not here to be interrogated, we’re here to help start a revolution.”

 

-

 

“You should go on the radio and do an interview,” Courfeyrac says later, when they’ve disbanded somewhat, and the three of them are standing together outside the Musain. “You know Mme Hucheloup, who owns this café? Her late husband used to host a radio show. She can connect us.”

“Why _me_?” says Enjolras, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking out over the street. “Combeferre is better at that sort of thing.”

“You’re pretty, though.”

“ _Hey_ ,” says Combeferre.

“Not to imply that Ferre isn’t, of course—you’re a very handsome man, Combeferre, you know—”

“It’s a radio show,” says Enjolras, staring at him. “Courfeyrac.”

“Fine,” says Courfeyrac mulishly. “Fine! I’ll do it, if you refuse. Maybe I can get some of the _sorbonnards_ to help me. Maybe they’ll be willing to use bicycles too, unlike _some_ people I happen to know.”

“You’re making this into a bigger deal than it needs to be,” says Enjolras, distracted; Feuilly’s just walked out of the Musain, and Enjolras waves at him. Feuilly smiles.

“Your crush is adorable,” says Courfeyrac happily, barely managing to dodge a well-placed elbow from Combeferre. “I want to go to London right now and punch every single _flic_ in the face.”

“No,” says Combeferre firmly.

“Right, I forgot you’re a pacifist—pacifism is shit.”

“Gandhi,” Combeferre counters, with the resignation that comes from a tired argument that’s been debated thousands of times over. “Tolstoy. Martin Luther King, Jr. Einstein. Christ, think Hans and Sophie Scholl—”

“Who were _executed_ —”

“Who set in motion a movement,” Combeferre corrects. “The lack of violence is an ideal, not a current reality, but that doesn’t mean we should lose hope in the ideal—”

“You have to _fight_ ,” says Courfeyrac fiercely, and personally, Enjolras agrees: pacifism is the ideal, but the reality is different.

They will create the ideal.

“What are we fighting?” asks Joly, coming up beside them, Bossuet following close behind. “If it’s the administration, we ought to be careful; I don’t want anyone to get hurt for no reason other than making a point.”

“Lyudmila Pavlichenko,” says Courfeyrac, “Rosa Luxemburg—”

“The demonstrators in London weren’t violent, though,” Bossuet points out, frowning. “It was the police that started the violence. Pacifism only works if the other side is willing to see reason, and won’t, say, murder you for opposing them.”

“Then you end up a tragic martyr and inspire the people,” says Prouvaire. He squeezes between Combeferre and Joly, an unlit cigarette in his hand and a book tucked tight under his arm.

“Inspire the people to a violent overthrowing of the government, yeah—”

“It’s no loss,” Prouvaire says. His fingers are delicate, light, against his cigarette. “The government could stand to be overthrown.”

Courfeyrac pounds his fist into his palm. “Imagine the look on de Gaulle’s face!” He grins wildly, shaking his head. “After we get the educational reforms sorted, we should definitely move on to government reformation. It certainly needs some.”

“Needs some _what_ ,” says Grantaire, joining the group. He takes Prouvaire’s cigarette and lights it, sticking it between his teeth. “Needs some sense knocked into it, as well as a pair of balls? I agree, although I do think your chances of that happening are slim. De Gaulle doesn’t do things by halves, especially if he hasn’t got them in the first place; I don’t think you’ll be able to find _his_ balls.”

“I’ve—never wanted to,” says Courfeyrac, half confused and half elated.

“You could always ask his wife,” Grantaire says, exhaling, “although, given her views on sex, I doubt she would even know what to look for.”

“We were talking about London,” says Enjolras, in a futile attempt to regain the original conversation.

“London’s shit,” says Grantaire, “nothing but rain and piss-poor beer. Worse than France, and that’s no small achievement; England lacks a history of revolutions. Although, one might say that’s because they don’t keep redoing old ideas in the hope that something new will come of them. Old Lizzie’s no fool, she knows how to keep her subjects in check, though you wouldn’t know it if you were a miner. Culture, they say, that’s what keeps London alive. Well, it’s derelict and decrepit; it’s not much more than a skeleton. People always want to resurrect corpses and chew them up. Think back to the revolutions—did Marie Antoinette die for nothing? The Revolution was supposed to die with her. And yet France stampedes every decade or so, crying for change, change. Oh, _change_. Nothing’s changed in centuries; it’s all dead. Life, culture, meaning, art—not even Godard could revive it, although not for want of trying. Antoinette, little Antoine; from Antonius, from the Latin. Gens Antonia. _Les gens_ , what else do you want? Anyway, London is shit.”

“ _Mèrda_ ,” says Joly under his breath, and Enjolras’s eyes widen unconsciously.

His breath is quick when he manages, “ _Tu, t’sabes, parlas_ —”

“ _Nasquèri en lo sud de França_ ,” says Joly, blushing slightly, then adds, almost apologetically, in French, “I was born in the south—”

“ _Ieu tanben,_ ” Enjolras says, ducking his head and fighting back the grin that’s threatening to creep across his face. He feels eighteen again, comforted, at home.

“All right, you two, let the rest of us know what you’re saying,” Bossuet grumbles, although he’s good-natured about it, letting one arm fall comfortably over Joly’s shoulders.

“I didn’t know you were from the south,” says Enjolras, in French. There’s something tight gripping his chest, making it difficult to breathe.

Joly smiles. “Born and raised in Aix-en-Provence. Paris is lovely, but I do miss home sometimes—things are a lot different here.”

“ _Òc_ , _las causas son desparièras aicí_ ,” Enjolras agrees, unable to stop himself, and registers numbly that everyone is staring at the two of them.

Combeferre sets a hand on his arm. The weight, the pressure is familiar and comforting. Enjolras leans slightly into the contact, lets himself be touched. 

It seems like it’s been years since he spoke patois, even though logically it can only have been months. Parisian French is crisper, the vowels tighter, the sibilants dropped; his name sounds strange when spoken in Paris. The words don’t flow as easily in the sharp, harsh dialect.

 _Occitanie_ : it’s been too long.

“We were talking about London,” says Combeferre gently, steering the conversation onto more familiar ground.

“God knows why,” says Grantaire loudly, “like I said, there’s nothing there except rain and irritable bastards looking to get drunk on cheap booze,” and the ripple is smoothed away, a wrinkled cloth ironed fresh.

 

-

 

It continues.

Nanterre has extended a hand across the city. The Sorbonne hesitates, falters, and raises its fist in response.

There will be a union of the universities.

 

 

-

 

 

  
Mardi, Mars 19, 1968

 

Amiens, in the north: Amiens, the regional prefecture of _picardie_ , the prefecture of the Somme, in the _bassin parisienne_. Amiens, the birthplace of Gothic architecture. Amiens, with its houses of red-and-white bricks; Amiens, with its _picard_ patois. A group of _sorbonnards_ has gathered at the northern city, planning a convention to discuss a proposed design for educational reforms.

Combeferre lifts his eyebrows when he hears the news from an energetic Courfeyrac, who has in turn relayed the information from an even more energetic Bahorel. “Did they invite any students from other universities?”

“I think they invited everyone, but only the _sorbonnards_ were involved in putting it together,” says Courfeyrac, worrying his lower lip again. Combeferre gently pushes his hand away from his mouth before he breaks the skin.

“That’s ridiculous,” says Enjolras, without opening his eyes—he’s sprawled on his back on the grass of the park where the three of them are resting, one arm thrown over his face, his textbook lying open and forgotten across his chest. “Nanterre was where the whole movement started.”

“I think,” says Courfeyrac slowly, “I think, I think we should see if we can get the universities to close.”

Enjolras blinks sleepily and rolls over onto his side. “Why? I’m not disagreeing with you, just—why?”

“We need a grand gesture,” Courfeyrac says, shrugging.

“So you want us to get kicked out?” Combeferre frowns. “Or get suspended, like Cohn-Bendit? It’s much more likely that they’ll call us before a panel of school Ministers to discuss educational code of conduct, instead of actually changing any of the regulations we want changed. What would we even _do_?”

“I don’t know, go to the girls’ rooms? Light something on fire?”

“Very funny,” says Enjolras, lying back down. He rubs a hand over his face and yawns. “If we _were_ going to force the universities to close while still staying within the limits of the rules, we would have to breed enough discord that the administration would close the university voluntarily, in an attempt to preclude something outside of the limits of the rules. But we wouldn’t be able to claim anything—it would have to be a general ambience of dissent, something pertaining to the administration, since they wouldn’t care otherwise . . . Missoffe would be furious, and Grappin . . . I wonder if we could pin the blame on the Occident, or one of the other _droitiste_ student groups.”

“Why, Enjolras,” says Courfeyrac, delighted, “you’re sounding almost _anarchist_. You know, when I first met you, I thought you were boring?”

Enjolras makes an indignant sound.

“Don’t worry, I think differently _now_ —but you didn’t talk much, and you just seemed to want to follow the rules and not get in anybody’s way—”

Combeferre starts laughing, and Enjolras pushes at his arm with his foot. “ _Hey_.”

“He talks when he wants to,” says Combeferre, covering his mouth to stifle his laughter, “as do you, it just happens to be more frequently in your case.”

“So would we _not_ go in the girls’ dormitories, then?” asks Courfeyrac, lifting his eyebrows rakishly.

“You just want an excuse!”

Courfeyrac pouts and tries to grab the book Enjolras has been reading. “You know, _Marius_ has been talking to one of the girls, and he likes her a lot, but he doesn’t know which university she attends—somehow they didn’t talk about it, but it’s not Sciences Po since he’s never seen her there—so maybe it’s Nanterre! Maybe I would be helping him find love! I can’t figure out who she is or even if she goes here unless I can talk to the _girls_ —”

“You could talk to them like any other reasonable person, instead of being a stalker,” suggests Combeferre dryly, rescuing Enjolras’s book before it gets damaged. “Have you tried, ‘Hello, how are you, what’s your name, did you know my friend is madly in love with you’?”

Enjolras lets his head fall back into the clipped grass and closes his eyes. “We need more support, the support of the other universities. Nanterre alone won’t be enough. We need to be united—to make it known that we want to unionise. If we want educational reformation, it has to be for every university. It has to be bigger than this. We can arrange a time and place—the café Musain, I think—and invite students from all the universities. Bahorel knows people who work in a printshop, so we can make _affiches_. We can write to Missoffe, to Grappin, to—to Pompidou, to de Gaulle. Make it obvious that we won’t settle.”

“I can go to the universities in person,” says Courfeyrac, jumping to his feet. “I know people from—most all of them, I think. I can do that.”

“I’ll draft letters,” Combeferre adds, holding out a hand. Enjolras takes it gratefully and lets himself be pulled upright.

“And I, to the printshop,” says Enjolras, smiling at him. He brushes bits of grass and leaves out of his hair.

Courfeyrac whoops and punches the air. “Vive la France! Vive la terre! Vive l’air! Vive les ouvriers, les chômeurs! Vive . . . vive Nanterre! Nanterre, _la folle_ —”

“Tu l’as, l’air de Prouvaire,” says Enjolras, unable to stop himself. Courfeyrac beams at the continuation of the rhyme.

“No, he attends Beaux-Arts—I know you think it’s a bit biz _arre_ — _je pense que t’as le cafard,_ Enjolras, _il faut que tu manges une barre . . . de chocolat_ , of course. Or maybe you need a crow _bar_ , and— _j’ai le coup de barre!_ And I’m done.”

“An impressive barrage,” says Enjolras. He fails at hiding the smirk on his face.

Courfeyrac groans, loud and exaggerated, and shoves insistently at his arm. “Oh, go _away_ , you horror.”

 

-

 

The printshop is small, tucked in between two taller, broader buildings on the rue Gay-Lussac, squat and neat. There are a few posters pinned to the wall outside; one of the corners has come loose. Enjolras smooths it down, opens the door softly.

“Oh, hi,” says Feuilly, turning. “Are you here to drag me away from my work?”

“Hoping I could join you, actually,” Enjolras says. “What can I do to help?”

Feuilly laughs, low in his throat. “I was just carrying paper out from the back room to reload the machines. You can help with that, if you want.”

“Okay.”

“I would’ve thought you’d be at Amiens,” says Feuilly over his shoulder as he transports a stack of blank sheets to the Xerox machine and setting it down with a grunt. “I heard they were going to be”—he lifts another stack—“connecting with the”—sets it down on the table—“Communist Party.”

There are still six reams of paper to be carried; Enjolras grabs one. The weight is comforting, almost familiar. There are black smudges on Feuilly’s arms, his sleeves rolled up above his elbows.

Enjolras takes a breath, inhales the smell of fresh paper and ink

“Having the support of the PCF would be ideal, but I don’t think they would join forces with a group of students, particularly when you consider that a good majority of the _sorbonnards_ gathered at Amiens are anarchists. The PCF doesn’t exactly like anarchists.”

“Their loss,” Feuilly huffs, setting down the last load and wiping his forehead with his sleeve. “They see anarchism as violence and destruction, not—well. Prouvaire is an anarchist, and Bahorel, and—I know you understand. Besides, right now we’re doing the more important part—the printing. _Nous voulons une université populaire_ , right?”

“Nanterre isn’t a lost cause,” says Enjolras.

He loads a new set of cartridges into the Xerox at Feuilly’s instruction and slides the first poster into the top of the machine as Feuilly refills the paper tray. “Here,” says Feuilly, and clicks the cartridges in place. His fingers are practiced, quick.

Enjolras brushes off his hands and turns. “I want the Sorbonne to join us. Completely. We were able to garner some support when we were there last, but it’s not enough. Nanterre is only one university, and it’s much newer than the Sorbonne is. Prouvaire has put posters up at Beaux-Arts. We have Nanterre. Sorbonne is next.”

“This isn’t just about educational reforms,” says Feuilly slowly.

Enjolras smiles. “No,” he says. “It never really was that simple.”

 

 

-

 

 

 

Vendredi, Mars 22, 1968

 

It happens like this.

First, the theory: students carry with them copies of _Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf_ , of _Die Massenpsychologie des Faschismus_. Reich replaces textbooks. Marcuse becomes bedside reading.

The administration takes a puritan view of the choices of literature: pleasure is a sin. The only books the students should be reading are their textbooks, the ones on their lists, not books of political theory.

The lists, the students respond, are obsolete and worthless and need to be changed to include books of political theory.

Missoffe has written a book concerning youth that is disregarded in favour of Marx, Guevara, Trotsky. A group of students begins to publish an illicit newspaper chronicling the dissent; no one can discover the identity of the editors.

A call to action is needed: the newspaper is titled _L’ACTION_.

Friday starts with Bahorel turning up out of nowhere, complaining that his rooms were haunted, and demanding an immediate investigation. He doesn’t sound entirely sober, but his eyes are earnest. “I spilled my fucking coffee,” he hisses, loud and surprisingly energetic considering the lack of caffeine, “if it _is_ a ghost I’m gonna do something drastic—”

Combeferre loses track of time while trying to figure out if the pipes are leaking or something paranormal has actually occurred, and is consequently late to his first class.

It’s only by three minutes, but the look on the professor’s face is still one of barely veiled distaste.

 _Look who finally decided to show up_ , the professor says, smirking. He marks Combeferre’s name off the list of students in attendance, deliberately slow. _This isn’t a sit-in at some American diner; you can’t just walk in like you own the place_.

Combeferre ducks his head and mumbles an apology, eyes stinging.

He opens his textbook to the correct page and smooths his hand across the faint crease in the spine.

There’s a smudge of blue ink on the inside of his wrist, from when he’d doodled a tiny space rocket, complete with a fuel tank.

He sits through the first class. The second class is another wash of meaningless colour and noise.

Time melts, blurs together.

The rocket has smeared and faded into an unintelligible blue blob by the time he meets Courfeyrac on the courtyard.

“Hey,” says Courfeyrac, shoving his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. “Fancy getting lunch? Enjolras says to meet him outside the administrative offices in an hour. He wants to have a meeting about the demonstrators arrested at the Vietnam protests, I _think_ , he wouldn’t say.”

“All right,” says Combeferre.

Vietnam is still a caustic subject. Press too hard upon the bruise the war has left and continues to leave, and it aches.

They’re walking back across the courtyard with their lunch, Courfeyrac singing the _Carmagnole_ , lyrics adjusted to include Grappin instead. “Dansons la grappinole,” he crows, wild, and nearly ploughs into a group of girls standing near the entrance to the administrative offices.

“Careful,” Combeferre murmurs, grabbing his arm and dragging him back. Courfeyrac just grins and bows deeply, recovering himself.

“Hi,” says one of the girls, blue eyes wide. She tips up her chin, determined. “You two are students here, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely,” Courfeyrac confirms, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. “You aren’t, though. University students, surely, but not from Nanterre. Nor Sorbonne; you’re too pretty for that. Let me guess, Beaux-Arts? Or perhaps Belle-l’Art.”

“Smooth,” says the girl, unimpressed. “We’re from Beaux-Arts, yes, and we heard about the events at Nanterre and Sorbonne. We wanted to see if we could help. I’m—I’m called Euphrasie, and this is Emilie and Marie.”

“Pleasure,” says Courfeyrac, tipping an imaginary hat. “Well, yes, we’re from Nanterre, and we were certainly involved in the, ah, events. Is Beaux-Arts willing to join the student movement?”

“Yes,” says Euphrasie firmly, precluding any hesitation. Her eyes flash. “We have the same ridiculous regulations—girls aren’t allowed in the boys’ dormitories unless we’re over twenty-one, and the boys aren’t allowed in our dormitories at all. The reasoning is that we need a private place to be _feminine_. As if allowing this would mean that every boy in the school would suddenly decide to live in our bathrooms.”

“It is certainly an issue,” Combeferre agrees, nodding slightly. “Well, we’re actually on our way to a meeting right now, you could come along—?”

“Thank you, but we do have to be going,” says one of the other girls, Marie. “We’re allowed to go out for our lunch as long as we don’t go alone, and we’ve got to be back before classes start.”

“Thank you for the offer,” Euphrasie says, smiling shyly. “We’ll see you, then?”

“Why not,” says Courfeyrac, and walks with extra buoyancy all the way to the staircase where Enjolras is waiting.

Enjolras is standing beside the door to the administrative offices, his bag slung over one shoulder. He’s eating an apple; his hair looks almost gilded in the sun.

He looks up when they approach, and holds out a paper. “Look, Feuilly finished these last night and brought them over.”

Combeferre takes the paper from him.

Raised fists, outlined in red.

Bold letters along the bottom of the poster: ABC.

 

-

 

Next, the strategy.

Courfeyrac uses pins to affix posters to the notice boards throughout the university. Someone writes on the wall next to Grappin’s offices: _c’est une révolution que nous allons faire_. Grappin either doesn’t see or refuses to acknowledge.

Ciné-club is cancelled, for the first time since Nanterre opened: flyers paper the walls of the university.

LA TELEVISION DIFFUSE UNE PROPAGANDE GOUVERNMENTALE; NOUS DEVONS REFUSER DE L’AUTORISER.

Tensions have been growing, mutters and whispers have been spreading, unrest has been simmering just under the surface.

The students resent Grappin, Missoffe, the administration. The school’s administration seeks power beyond what is necessary; the students push back, testing the limitations. They quote Reich’s call for sexual liberation, free contraceptives, legalised abortions. They quote Marx’s call for a better political system.

They quote the universal call for a revolution.

“All power corrupts,” says Courfeyrac, referring to the administration and its tight fists. “It follows that absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The administration shuts its doors and eyes and ears and refuses to listen.

 

-

 

Afternoon melts into evening. The sky turns from blue to purple and orange fire.

Enjolras is slouched against the wall, loose-limbed and languid. His eyes are hooded; he seems half-asleep. He yawns.

The others have gathered, milling about the entrance to the administrative building. The door is precise, unassuming. The paint is peeling.

Decay made visible. The old order is rotting from the foundation on up.

Enjolras lifts his chin. His eyes find Courfeyrac, and his mouth curves. “‘Dare! This word contains all the politics of the present moment.’”

“You’re too much like Saint-Just, sometimes,” says Courfeyrac, raising his eyebrows. “Audacity was for Danton, anyway. The administration is out; do you want to go in?”

The administration refuses to meet with the students.

The students take matters into their own hands.

Enjolras hesitates for only a second. “Yes,” he says firmly, and turns, swift and sure. Pushes the door open with his palm flat against the wood.

A breath of pause.

They follow him in.

Bahorel grabs a chair and jams it under the knob, trying to barricade the door; someone else starts pushing the desk. It scrapes across the floor with a horrible sound. The noise is enough to rouse the school; someone’s fist hammers suddenly on the wall outside, demanding entry—the administration, perhaps. Bahorel sets his shoulder against the desk and shoves it home.

Then they pause, breathless.

The door is barred. The room is theirs.

Courfeyrac punches the air, wild-eyed with excitement, face flushed. “I feel like such a fucking _rebel_.”

Bahorel snatches one of the sticks of chalk from the paper box next to the blackboard and starts scribbling. He draws a caricature of de Gaulle, makes the nose aquiline. Draws a fist aimed at the president.

“The fist of no return,” Bahorel says smugly, dropping the chalk back into its box and brushing off his hands. “There’s no going back.”

Enjolras isn’t paying attention to the vandalism. He has an armful of Grappin’s papers strewn across the floor, spilt, rummaging through them in search of something. “The arrests of the demonstrators implicit in the protests,” he says, voice muffled. “They were within their rights—I just need to make sure that the protests _here_ are legal, in which case no one has any right to complain. Or if they’re illegal, then we’ll fight to make them legal. They _should_ be legal. We deserve the right to protest injustice—”

Proof that what they’re doing is legal, that any arrests made are otherwise: a cornerstone, a hard sharp weapon in their defence.

Bahorel takes up another stick of chalk and writes _ABC_ on the board.

“Doing your lines, Bahorel?” asks Courfeyrac, smirking, one hand on his hip. Bahorel makes a face.

The noise from outside stops, cut off. Enjolras lifts his head from his work, up to his elbows in a file cabinet, his face slightly flushed. “Combeferre. Did they see any of us when we came in?”

“I don’t think so.” Combeferre is looking out the window, one hand wrapped in the curtain, the other braced against the glass. “Did you find what we need?”

In answer Enjolras holds up a thin book, triumphant. Grappin’s rulebook, dictating crime and meting out punishment. “Restricting the right to protest counts as restricting our right to free speech. It’s the same sort of thing that Ohnesorg was murdered because of, it’s the same thing they always do. They think they can strip us of our rights just because we’re young, because we’re students.”

The book is leather-bound, gilt. Enjolras cradles the spine with a misleading reverence that his eyes betray, and lets it fall open in his hand.

“Audacity,” says Courfeyrac, accepting the sideways look from Enjolras that he knows he deserves. “Let’s burn it all down.”

Caustic.

When the police come at last, called by the panicked slip of control that Grappin commandeers, the students leave triumphant, without complaint. Courfeyrac thumbs his nose at the police on his way out.

 

-

 

Enjolras rips apart the rulebook figuratively with his tongue.

Courfeyrac uses his hands.

“They claim to promote free education—” A page goes fluttering to the floor. “—they claim they don’t discriminate against workers—” Another page. “—they claim that the university is diverse—” Another. “— _fuck_ them,” Courfeyrac finishes, vindictive, and tears the table of contents down the middle with a long, terrible sound.

He drops the book onto the floor then, after a moment of deliberation, steps on it.

“If you’re quite done,” says Enjolras, but the set of his mouth is fond. “Funding comes primarily from the upper class, and therefore upper-class students are given preferential opportunities. Look at the Occident—most of them are rich, sons of bourgeois, lining their pockets with a useless education so they can join their fathers in the world of bureaucracy and government. Workers or children of workers are rarely allowed into the circle. Look at the _ridiculous_ struggle that Feuilly has had to deal with, just to be able to take a few classes that don’t even teach anything—”

Feuilly ducks his head, cheeks colouring.

“And the money circles and circles, without ever coming down. The administration, the government, it’s all the same. They don’t see us as _people_. They see us as _things_.”

“If we back down now,” says Combeferre, “they’ll expel us without hesitation. Our only choice is to fight.”

Finally: the dénouement. The conclusion.

The university will reopen, the administration promises. The university will swing wide its doors to all.

Classes are suspended until the first of April.

And then Nanterre doesn’t reopen.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: [spacestationtrustfund](spacestationtrustfund.tumblr.com)  
> Mai 68 blog: [listolier](listolier.tumblr.com)


End file.
